Sell to both BD and India.
I would expect BD to take around a quarter of electricity and India three-quarters.
BD can and will match any price that India offers. India is not a rich a country that it will offer very high price.
Based on what estimate are you implying that BD will take 1/4th of the electricity?
Or how would the dams be built?
A majority of the electricity produced in North East is in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
Why would even 1 megawatt of electricity be given to BD when India would be willing to buy the entire amount at a greater price than what BD offers.
Considering that transporting to BD would also entail an added cost.
Yes, India has more than twice the per capita income of BD. It is far richer than BD. The GoI is in a position to match and exceed any price that BD is willing to pay.
So what makes you think that
any resource would flow to BD?
That access has been given by Awami League, without the support of majority BD'shis, and no guarantee that it would stay in the future under another government. Awami League is fighting for it's life now and could easily be destroyed as a political entity if they cannot hold onto power after the sham election they will hold soon.
Under SAFTA and WTO rules, BD is bound to provide access to India. Just like Pakistan is bound under WTO to remove trade barriers against India.
Even if BNP comes to power, they cannot change international agreements and WTO conventions because they feel like it.
So, North East is going to get access to BD ports with or without any change in the sovereignty of these States.
Now why would they want to secede when they are getting all they want within India.
As long as the NE states are friendly to BD, then BD would have no economic benefit not to provide them access. If BD stops port access, then no electricity from NE states for BD.
NE states could play both BD and India off against one another for their benefit
Thats exactly the point.
Your entire premise that Assam and Arunachal would provide electricity to BD is flawed. It would be highly unlikely that they would.
Only Tripura has the potential to supply electricity to BD, and it would be a very small amount.
BD might decide tomorrow that it wants to take over these smaller states because of the benefit they have.
So to guard against that these small countries would have to spend whatever they earn to create a competent military.
BD and Myanmar are not militarily strong countries. Myanmar could try to attack but BD will never attack the NE as there would be no reason to. NE states are supplying BD with electricity and natural resources and BD gets a good market for its goods and also earns transit fees from NE states imports/exports.
Anyway, BD only spends 3 billion dollars and Myanmar around 5 billion dollars a year on defence.
What they spend on defence(say 5 billion dollars a year) will be more than made up by the tens of billions a year they will get from selling to both BD and India just on electricity.
Nope.
The smaller states like Mizoram and Tripura who dont have much hydro potential can be easily annexed by BD to expand its territory.
To guard against it, they would spend billions of dollars to create a military.
Whereas the real/major economic resources present in North East are in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
So what happens to these new small countries, they would have to still make a big military to guard against BD and Myanmar.
That would make them very poor.
Thus all in all, their economic advantages in staying with India are overwhelming compared to the advantages of seceding.